Hostile Force Read online

  “I just had a call from the cop heading the task force. They’re well pleased with what they found at the airfield, but they can’t figure out the way it went down. Only one of the victims who speaks English says they heard arguing before the shooting and believe it must have been some kind of gang fallout.”

  “It can happen, Greg. People like those traffickers are pretty unstable.”

  “The girl is giving chapter and verse about where they were snatched. Descriptions. Some locations, though she can’t be too clear on those because for a lot of the time they were kept locked up.”

  “If you get ID on any of those traffickers...” Bolan said.

  “I’ll pass on what I can,” Henning said.

  “Grateful.”

  “Where next? Or shouldn’t I ask?”

  “Better you don’t,” Bolan said, then ended the call.

  A small town loomed in of the distance. Bolan drove slowly along the single main street until he spotted a clothing store. The window display showed mainly agricultural wear, which suited Bolan’s needs. He parked the SUV and went into the store. The man behind the counter studied him carefully, taking in the black outfit.

  “Had my jacket stolen earlier,” Bolan said. “I need a waterproof coat.”

  “Rack just to your right,” the man said, pointing.

  Bolan checked the displayed garments. He tried on a loose-fitting waxed garment. It felt right. Bolan took out his wallet and handed over his credit card. As they completed the transaction the man behind the counter nodded toward the SUV.

  “Good-looking motor,” he said. “Looks like the latest model.”

  “Yeah. Nice ride.”

  “They come with everything fitted now. Even built in

  SatNavs. You got one in there?”

  Bolan smiled. “Wouldn’t be at all surprised,” he said.

  Back in the SUV, Bolan ran a check on the cell phones he had confiscated. He didn’t find anything helpful until the contact lists kept coming up with a common name. Bolan called Joey Ballantine and quoted him the name.

  “Mean anything to you?” Bolan asked.

  “Yeah. Heard it before. Don Lawrence is the man in London. He runs local operations for the mob. Well-protected. Henning’s tried to catch him a few times but Lawrence is a slippery bugger. He’s lawyered up to the neck. Can’t be touched.”

  “That’s about to change,” Bolan said.

  “How did your visit to the docks go?”

  “A satisfactory result. Do you have a location for Lawrence?”

  Chapter 4

  “Who the hell are you? I don’t know you.”

  “Right now, Lawrence, I’m a very important man in your life. In fact, I’m the only one who matters.”

  Don Lawrence stared at Bolan. He sat upright, moving his shoulders casually, and a degree of confidence returned.

  “If you know so much about me you’ll understand not to mess about. Our organization doesn’t respond to threats. We have ways of dealing with them.” Lawrence managed a cocky smile. “Be careful what you say.”

  There was a subtle change in Bolan’s expression. It was enough to make Lawrence hold back his next remark. The blue eyes of the man staring at him took on a chill intensity that matched the tone of his voice.

  “Larry Cobb was found dead in his car outside his Paris hotel. Bullet through the back of his skull. The same as Ernst Schiller, except he was left in a ditch outside Munich. The slugs removed from them matched. Came from the same weapon.”

  “What does that have to do with me?”

  “It has to do with the fact that the gun in question has been linked to a number of murders your mob had a hand in.”

  “You can prove nothing, even if it might be true.”

  “We both know it’s the truth, so don’t play games with me. I’m sure you’ve heard by now about the delivery point at the airfield. You lost men and a cargo. That was only the start. I’m here to pass on a message. Make sure your people hear it. You’ve run your string. No more free passes. I’m going to cut your mob apart. Take you down piece by piece. The minute I walk out that door you’re all targets. No bargaining. No exceptions. From bottom to top. Bagman to head honcho. It’s all over, Lawrence. Put out the word. Accept the fact you are all walking dead men.”

  The 93-R moved, the muzzle centering on Lawrence’s face. It held there for a time and Lawrence began to sweat. The beads ran down and stung his eyes. He tried to blink them away. He ran his sleeve across his eyes and when his vision cleared and he could see again the black-clad figure had gone.

  Lawrence heard the click of the apartment door closing. He reached and grasped the Glock autopistol holstered under his jacket, gripping it hard. He didn’t pull it from the holster because he could feel his hand shaking.

  The big man in black had scared him. No doubt there. He might not reveal that fear to anyone, but the man had been scary. Something in his manner. His voice. And those icy blue eyes. Whoever he was, the guy had been in earnest. It had been no idle threat—no hollow words. He had meant what he said. Lawrence was convinced about that. His actions at the airfield had shown he was not fooling around.

  He didn’t know how or when or where, but the man dressed in black was going to cause problems for the mob. That was a certainty.

  Lawrence understood something else. The man was no cop. He was no OrgCrime agent, either. Okay, his accent was American—he hadn’t made any attempt to hide that fact. But he had made direct threats against the organization. And Lawrence was in no doubt he would act on those threats.

  He glanced across the room to where Lex lay. His minder had been a good companion. A brutal, psychotic individual who had little respect for anyone in his way. The man in black had put him down without hesitation when Lex had gone for him. He’d avoided Lex’s attack, his powerful hands snapping the man’s neck as easily as breaking a bread stick. The act had defined the man’s skill. It wasn’t a big move to imagine those skills encompassing the organization.

  Lawrence picked up his cell phone, hit a speed-dial number and waited for his call to be picked up.

  He had a message to deliver.

  He was not looking forward to it.

  “Don, you sound agitated. What’s wrong?”

  “I’ll tell you what’s wrong. I just had a visit from some bloke dressed all in black who told me to pass on the fact he’s going to close us down. He was the same guy who hit the airfield drop-off.”

  “What the hell do you mean he’s going to close us down?”

  “Just that. Shut down the organization. Tear us apart. He said to tell you we are all walking dead men.”

  There was a long pause. Then a cold laugh.

  “Who was this fuck? This has to be someone’s joke of the month, Don.”

  “Really? I’ll tell you who isn’t laughing, Corrigan. Lex isn’t laughing because he’s lying on my bloody floor dead. My visitor snapped his neck when Lex tried to throw him out.”

  The silence this time ran on for a while.

  “This doesn’t make any sense, Don. No sense at all. No one screws with us.”

  “Well, this guy was serious. You should have been here, Corrigan. He was tooled up. I thought he was going to shoot me.”

  “Not a cop? One of the OrgCrime team?”

  “No, I don’t think so. But he knew about Schiller and Cobb. Said the slugs they pulled out of them matched. And he said he had proof the gun had been used in other related killings.”

  “What about an accent? Where was he from?”

  “He’s American. Big feller. Over six feet. Black hair. Bloody cruel blue eyes.”

  Corrigan said, “He familiar at all?”

  “Not to me. Corrigan, you should beef up security. That’s your job, isn’t it? Whoev
er this bloke is he’s got good intel. He knew about the cargo pickup. He found out where I live. And he has facts we can’t ignore.”

  Corrigan grunted his assent. “If he was out to make a point he did just that. We’ll have to scratch the airfield. Can’t use it again. But we need to keep up with our deliveries. Check your lists, Don. You have commitments to keep. Frasko will be wanting to move another shipment. We need to be ready with a fresh delivery location. Work on it, then call me soon as you have it ready.”

  “I’ll speak to Markel and have him arrange a video conference for the heads. They need to know what’s happened and what this bloody American said.”

  “Good luck with that,” Corrigan said.

  “Cheeky sod,” Lawrence said. “Last thing I need is that bugger Frasko throwing his weight about.”

  Chapter 5

  Rene Markel was having a difficult time holding back his impatience. He hated video-conferencing. He much preferred face-to-face meetings. However, that was one of the drawbacks of long-distance dealings. The way the mob was set up there were few alternative methods to bring everyone together. Leaning back in his seat he picked up his pack of French Gitanes Brunes cigarettes and lit one with the heavy gold lighter he always carried. The strong tobacco gave him a brief lift and he gazed around the conference room, eyes taking in the expansive view of the city beyond the soundproof glass of the wall-to-wall window. In the hazy distance he could see Notre Dame. He never tired of the view. Paris was his city. He loved it with a passion. Every brick. Every street and alley. Its smell and color. The restless mood that inhabited the place. Sun or rain, it made no difference. If he had been forced to make a choice, Paris in the rain would have been it. Streets glistening. The very smell of the city freshened by the persistent drizzle. People rushing for cover. Markel drew on the cigarette, a wistful smile curling his lips.

  The computer made a beeping noise as the final participant came online. Don Lawrence from London. His face on the large monitor looked strained, dark bags under his eyes. For once he had forgone his pristine appearance. He looked harassed.

  His image did not go unnoticed by the others on the video link.

  Lec Frasko from Albania.

  Hans Coblenz, who was calling from Hamburg.

  From Italy, Marcello Astrianni.

  And from the U.S.A., the head of the east-coast group, Anthony “Tony” Lowell. He was also, by default, the boss of the bosses.

  This was the first time they had been brought together in an emergency meeting for a long time. They spoke on many occasions in one-on-one conversations, and their subordinates were constantly in meetings relating to business. But for the heads of the groups to speak en masse was a special moment.

  “We all know why we’re here,” Markel began.

  He spoke in English as it was a language known to them all, and it saved time and the chance of mistakes if they had to work through translators.

  “Don,” Lowell interrupted, “what the hell is going on over there? Sorry to jump in, Rene, but this is too important to worry about fucking niceties.”

  Lowell was well known for his lack of diplomacy. He had grown up on the streets, having had to fight for everything he wanted and the experience had left him with little time for polite conversation.

  “We had an incident at the pickup point in the east of England,” Lawrence said.

  Frasko leaned forward, his grim features twisted into an angry scowl. “An incident. You lost valuable cargo,” he yelled. “Twenty-five pieces of merchandise I had transported to the U.K. without a problem. And you lost them.”

  “You think I did it for fun?” Lawrence countered. “I lost men. Some dead, others arrested. We were hit by some trigger-happy shit who came out of nowhere.”

  “Hah,” Frasko said. “You had enough men there and one took them down. What kind of idiots do you employ?”

  “You think your Albanian arseholes could have done better?”

  Frasko thrust his face close to the screen. “My grandmother could have done a better job.”

  “From what I hear she does her best work on her back,” Lawrence said.

  “Enough,” Lowell thundered. “We’re here to work this out, not call each other names. Now cool it down. If we can’t iron this out between ourselves then we are quickly going to end up in a mess.” He cleared his throat, taking a drink from a tall glass of iced water. “Don, for the benefit of those who haven’t heard, repeat what this guy laid out for you.”

  Lawrence, as they all knew, was the point man in London. He was the organizer, the money man and the guy who hired and fired.

  “In brief this Yank paid a visit to my apartment after the airfield hit. He killed Lex. Snapped his neck right in front of me. He made it clear he was responsible for the airfield hit. His message, for us all, was to say he was going to put us out of business. The organization would be ripped apart and we are all his targets. Walking dead men were his actual words.”

  Coblenz said, “Shouldn’t we be considering who this man is? Yes, he has information the OrgCrime force knows about. But he does not operate like any agent I have ever heard of.”

  “Hans has a valid point,” Lowell said. “This guy comes out of nowhere and carves up our people like a loose cannon. Okay, the OrgCrime squads are bound to be pissed off because we dropped a couple of their agents. But those assholes don’t take a leak without checking the orders of the day, and they do not send out some independent shooter. Their legal people would be having collective heart attacks if they even raised the question.”

  “So are we looking at some rival mob?” Astrianni asked in his heavily accented English. He stroked a hand through his thick black hair, a nervous habit he had. “Is this going to become a war?”

  “No way,” Lowell said. “Who would have the balls to stand up to us? No one. Jesus, let’s not start getting paranoid. Look at the facts. One guy comes in, takes down Don’s crew, and next thing the cops are crawling all over creation. This screwball wasn’t looking to take over the cargo. He lets the cops take ’em.”

  “What then?” Lawrence said. “Is this bastard a vigilante or something? A do-gooder trying to clean up the streets?”

  “An independent operator,” Markel said. “Could be a black-ops deal. Brought in by government.”

  “Which government?” Frasko said.

  “What about an outside contractor?” Lawrence said. “Like the private-security companies working in Iraq and Afghanistan?”

  “That’s possible,” Lowell agreed. “Some of those ex-military guys will go the extra mile if the money is good.”

  “It does not matter who,” Coblenz barked, his voice ringing with Teutonic sternness. “We need to do something before it happens again. We need to protect ourselves.”

  “We all have businesses to maintain,” Lowell said. “None of us have the time to handle this personally, so we need to bring in our man. Give him the facts and turn him loose.”

  Markel smiled. The Frenchman knew exactly who Lowell was referring to. He had used the mob’s troubleshooter himself.

  “Corrigan,” he said quietly. “Yes. Give it to Corrigan. Let him pick up the scent and hunt down this bastard.”

  * * *

  NO ONE RAISED any objections. They were all familiar with Lowell’s man. He had never failed to bring any assignment to a satisfactory conclusion.

  His latest operation had resulted in the termination of the OrgCrime agents—Schiller and Cobb.

  Both of them, closing in on the European division of the group, had been efficiently taken care of by the man. Corrigan had been furnished with the names of the agents, their locations delivered to him by the mole within the OrgCrime ranks, and had completed the assignment within a week.

  Unfortunately a third agent, a Brit named Sorin, had vanished. Even Corriga
n had been unable to locate him. He was still looking. Lowell would make contact with Corrigan and bring him up to speed with the current situation. He would add the search for the rogue American to Corrigan’s list. Point him in the direction of the interloper. Sorin would still be looked for by one of Corrigan’s additional teams.

  “Leave this with me,” Lowell said. “This is why we have Corrigan on standby. He’ll bring his boys on board and hunt down this son of a bitch.”

  “Tell him to make it quick,” Frasko said. “We can’t have any more fuck-ups. Business will begin to suffer if this American is not hunted down.”

  The Albanian was a hard man who had no time for anything that interfered with business. His intolerance was a trait no one liked, even the other heads of the mob. He challenged everything and everyone. Frasko was indifferent to his business partners’ dislike of him. They had to put up with it because he was good at his job. His snatch teams were the most proficient, gathering up young women and girls from the streets and delivering them where requested. The incident at the airfield had been the first example of anything going wrong. It was hardly Frasko’s fault, but he would use the moment to express his impression that other parts of the mob were not operating efficiently.

  “Okay, okay,” Lowell said. “Leave the arrangements to me. Corrigan will be on the case by the end of the day. Right now we need to move on to other business. Marcello, you wanted to talk about the distribution of that consignment of narcotics....”

  Chapter 6

  Corrigan could never recall when he had acquired the title of “the Cleaner.” It had been around for such a long time, it neither interested nor bothered him. He only thought about it briefly when the name was bandied about by others.

  The Cleaner.